I'm just finishing reading a book that many of you have probably already read, as it is now several years old. I avoided reading it when it first came out because I was afraid that it might make me think about things I didn't want to think about. You see, my mom passed away many [...]

A good friend of mine, Jim, ran a dog-training business. One of his own dogs had a litter of pups and he right away realized that one of the new puppies seemed to be special. And he wasn’t wrong. Early on the new little puppy just seemed to have something about her that put her a cut above the [...]

Our communication to people both within and outside of our organization was not what it needed to be. Emails or other communications from various departments often overlapped, were sometimes duplicated, were maybe missing altogether, or finally, may have be contradictory. We all knew there were issues, but everyone was waiting for somebody else to fix it. So when we reach the point of needing something done, what [...]

When I was a new administrator I thought I could handle everything on my own. Let me rephrase that. I thought I was supposed to handle everything on my own. After all, I was the boss. People looked to me to lead the organization, make the hard decisions, steer the ship, have all the right answers, and know everything about [...]

“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” - John Wesley In our professional lives, or our personal lives as well for [...]

In our trainings, we often do a short, very unscientific self-assessment with the group we are working with to get everyone thinking a little about personalities. We make sure upfront that everyone understands that we are not psychologists and that our little activity is in no way an to attempt psycho-analyze anyone. It’s just fun and it gets people [...]

Several years ago when I was a relatively new administrator, I went to work putting together a team that would move us forward in our organization. “Moving us forward” is a pretty vague objective that we like to use, but that’s really about all I knew at the time. Actually, we were looking at developing learning communities, but we weren’t really sure yet [...]

I didn’t grow up on a farm, but I did kind of grow up on a farm. Actually, I lived in a small town but my grandparents owned a farm and I spent a lot of time there. Much of my summer often included staying with them to help in the hay, drive the tractor and disc just [...]

Be Still…….And Listen. I may not be saying it in the same tone I might have used with one of our children when they were young and I was trying to impart some of my wisdom on them, and they felt the need to explain how they knew better. But maybe the intent is the same. Just be calm [...]

I know a lady that has some of the best leadership qualities of anyone I’ve ever met, and she absolutely does not want to be a leader. And doesn’t think she ever has been. But she’s one of the best leaders I know, she’s just not measured in the same way one might think. We read books, [...]